György LIGETI
Le Grand Macabre
Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Sibylle Ehlert, Laura Claycomb,
Charlotte Hellekant, Jard van Nes
Sony
S2K 62312
[102:27]
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
With this work avant-guarde composer György Ligeti presents "opera."
(He put quotes around the word himself.) Ornery to the core, Le Grand Macabre
uses musical instruments to simulate non-musical effects. Before its scenes
there are two car horn preludes and a doorbell prelude. These frisky and
brief introductions are amusing in the same way as Marcel Duchamps' famous
found urinal sculpture. In fact, the entire plot is retro-Dada: Piet the
Pot, a forever tipsy, professional wine-taster, is abducted by Nekrotzar,
the Great Macabre, a personification of death. We meet court astrologers
who engage in S & M and a confused Prince Go-Go, who reigns in Breughelland,
a place where the two political parties have no differences at all. (Sound
familiar?) This anti-music is cacophonous and occasionally clever, such as
a concluding Passacaglia done in mock classical style. Squawking
sprechtstimme inflates the non-musical segments with volume lacking
substance. Inevitably, the work's constant anarchic energy wears thin. There
is just too much grunting, squealing, and fall-flat satire. Thirty five years
ago I must have anticipated hearing Le Grand Macabre for the first and only
time, because I wrote: "Sometimes in the melting day/There are eons of hours
to endure."
Peter Bates
